


of rotifers and romance

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t always mess with the time-space continuum just to be closer to the ones you love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of rotifers and romance

It’s a Friday, which means his lab assistant nearly sprouts wings and flies in her impatience to leave the lab, heels clicking hard and coat rustling as she throws a soft _see ya, Carlos_ over her shoulder, sound waves bouncing twice against the wall (and he still hadn’t figured how they did that) before reaching his ears. Carlos raises his arm halfway, bends his metacarpals in what he hopes to be a goodbye wave. One eye is still trained on the bacterial strain under the microscope, blinking in awe as the tiny little guys zip around in their viscous cytoplasm and vibrate with imperceptible energy. 

“See ya,” he mutters, sort of to himself and the bacteria, and fills a graduated cylinder until it’s halfway filled with his sample, pond water of all things, in the desert. Turns out Big Rico’s steamed buns wasted nearly half a gallon water each day, turning the shallow depression behind the dumpster into an accidental microcosm of a pond. 

There’s the usual, tiny textbook Paramecium and flagellates, moving of their own accord towards their meal. Rotifers inch around the edges, large and bloated under the harsh light of his microscope. There’s something off about them, their usually elongated bodies looking thicker and shorter around the middle, like someone grabbed both ends and pushed. 

It’s baffling, but Carlos feels the beginnings of a migraine, drumming near his ears and pulling bits and pieces of his patience with it. The pain is dull and rusted, like his high school scalpel during dissections, and scrapes uncomfortably around his temples and makes his eyes twitch. 

His arms feel heavy with lead when he lifts them, legs sluggishly dropping to the floor and dragging him towards the exit. The petri dish of rotifers is tucked safely into observation case, edges scraping against the square perimeter. Locking the drawer, Carlos drops his keys into his pocket, curling his fingers around it and feeling the edge dig into his skin. 

He does not expect Cecil to stand in front of his car, arms clasped and blooming mauve sunset all over his neck and ears. Cecil’s shadow seems even more bashful, swirling anxiously (he can’t tell if shadows can feel anxiety, but if it is treated as a substantial _thing_ in Night Vale, Carlos guesses it can). 

“Cecil,” he says, a question and a statement, and a million other things swirling in his vocal chords and banging futilely against his larynx. He recognizes fondness, followed quickly by exasperation, and the short staccato thump of fear of whatever is inside Cecil’s overlapping knuckles. 

“Carlos,” Cecil says, somehow swooning and staying completely serious while addressing him. 

“Our date is tomorrow,” Carlos says stupidly, because he knows, he knows Cecil draws hearts on the calendar whenever they have a date, he know he himself draws stupid hearts on Cecil’s wrist with his finger. He knows all of this and still manages to be completely obvious and ridiculous about it. 

At the mention of the date (the fifth, as natural as breathing, the goodnight kisses getting longer and longer until Carlos feared they would miss the ill-timed sunset yet again), Cecil’s composure cracks, his cheeks a profuse lavender. 

With his forearms, Cecil pushes off the hood of Carlos’ economic and stylish hybrid Coupe, a bit too close for the parking lot, where some of Carlos’ employees stand against walls and smoke cigarettes and talk in low, hushed voices. 

“That’s what I came for,” he says, voice dropping low and soft and Carlos barely refrains from tracing the flutter paths of his lashes with his thumb. They send pinstripe streaks of black into Cecil’s iris, resembling vertical blinds obscuring marigold haze. Something cold is pressed into his palm and Carlos jumps, even when he sees Cecil’s hand coming to cover his own. 

“Wha-?” he blusters, the moment broken by his confusion.

“You’ll need this for our date,” Cecil says, and his voice has turned deep and ominous, sending strange pinpricks of sensation down the vertebrae of Carlos’ spine. He looks down at their entwined fingers, the chilled coin resting heavy in his palm. 

For a moment Carlos thinks he sees the Glow Cloud in Cecil’s eyes. 

Then it passes, and Carlos is back to having a blushing contest with Cecil, who is currently winning out, tips of his ears purpling so dark they turn black. He pockets the coin, still managing to hold at least one of Cecil’s fingers in his own, proud of his achievement.

“It’s protocol to bring at least _one_ time warp coin for a date, you know, but I sort of, well, _splurged_ ,” Cecil says sheepishly, bringing up a stack of silver coins from his pocket. “I know City Council says too much time warp is damaging, and I’m a law abiding citizen, really, it’s just,” Cecil just reaches for his hand and presses a nail into his pinky. 

“You can’t always mess with the time-space continuum just to be closer to the ones you love,”

And that is the most ridiculously sweet thing Carlos has ever heard, leaving him once again staring at his radio host, _his_ host, (and he can say and think things like that and nobody even cares), mouth agape and fingers twitching with the need to do something to make Cecil aware that he feels this way too, only that he is too blindsided by over sized rotifers and unreliable sunsets to find a proper poetry class and say what he feels.

Instead Carlos leans up, balancing himself on his toes before pressing his lips to Cecil’s, off-center until Cecil’s fingers tilt him into the optimal position. Cecil tastes of carbonated water and sugary donuts and everything Carlos has ever wanted but been too scared to ask for. Cecil’s fingers tighten on his lapels, bone pressing against bone, his fingers against Carlos’ sternum. They breathe against each other, and Carlos thinks about the signs of a living organism, the exchange of gases with the environment, and Cecil is all around him taking his air and giving it back, and Carlos is alive, has never felt more alive, pressing a man against the door of his hybrid Coupe and not wanting to let go. 

Eventually they have to, as a Secret Police officer taps smartly on his shoulder and asks if they’d like to fill out a PDA form valid for twenty three minutes. As appealing as it sounds, Carlos feels exhaustion seeping back into his bones, and Cecil mutters about how the ten minute ode to Bach he put on for the weather must be ending soon. 

“Cecil,” he says, tugging on his hand, both of them reluctant to let go. It takes a few more tugs and more violent blushing on his side, but Cecil finally untangles their fingers, letting Carlos open the car door. 

“I look forward to our date,” Cecil announces, in his radio announcer voice, surely catching the eye of a few not-angels and coworkers. His glasses are askew and his hair falls loosely around his collar, today the colour of whitewash and the scent of petrichor. 

He winks at Carlos, turning around too quickly for him to see his blush, but it’s there, Carlos knows, bleeding mauve into Cecil’s skin. Carlos winks back, fighting the flush on his face and smiling to himself as he turns the ignition.

His car splutters, stammers, and lets out a few epithets as it tumbles down the main road. Its sentience barely fazes Carlos, who nearly is swallowed by a pothole, and can not find it within himself to care. 

He has a date.

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into the Welcome to Night Vale fandom. Constructive criticism is highly appreciated.


End file.
